Deeper Things: The Lure of Fanfic

declaring my love assuredly, loudly, and fervently

I found fanfiction.net when I was way too young – my gateway was Twilight fanfic, I think, but I don’t remember how I ended up on the terrible ff.net interface. I have since moved on to A03 (or Archive of Our Own), and while I will never share my username and/or favorites in a forum that my parents can read, I do feel comfortable talking about my love of fic more broadly.

Looking back, I feel fairly confident in saying that I spent most of 2024 in an anxiety spiral. Now that I’m *fingers crossed* on the other side of it, it makes more sense why I couldn’t’ really focus on anything new. I’ve spoken about this before, I know, but it is really annoying when you love to read but can’t deal with new characters! Enter: fanfiction. I have no idea how many stories or pages I read, but I feel confident telling you it was millions of words over the five months I didn’t pick up a book to read. Instead of spending time in new worlds, I was spending time in what was familiar: Colin and Penelope falling in love in a variety of ways; Hermione, Ron, and Harry going on new adventures; familiar characters from TV shows and movies in new environments.

In so many ways, it was exactly what I needed. It scratched the itch of reading, but it didn’t tax my already over-taxed brain by having to learn new plots. In other ways, it was hard to talk about. People would ask me for book recommendations, and I felt weird saying, “oh I haven’t read that, but could I interest you in an incomplete 200k word fic about ABO dynamics in a modern Bridgerton fanfic?”

For so long of my reading career, I felt embarrassed by my love of fanfic – I rarely talked about it (and I still don’t really) and something about it felt taboo. I’m not sure why I felt this way, but I don’t think I’m the only one. When writing this newsletter, I did what every true millennial does for a first step in research, and I googled: “Is fanfiction okay?” and thanks to the magic of AI, I can give you this that sums it up:

I did feel weird about it, and honestly I still kind of do – not for any reason besides it does feel like something is frowned upon. Is that because it is a “nerdy” hobby that is dominated by women? Is it because it’s considered derivative? I can say with certainty that many of the fics I have read are better than some books I have read – and they are provided for free! To anyone with an internet connection! Honestly, when you think about it, it’s kind of wild.

Now, fast forward to 2025, and we’re seeing a boom of fanfic authors publish “traditionally,” which is amazing and kind of weird to me. Yes, everyone and their mom knows about E.L. James and how Fifty Shades of Greystarted as Twilight fanfiction, but in the past few years alone, we’ve seen these authors transition successfully from fanfic: Julie Soto, Ali Hazelwood, Olivie Blake, Brigette Knightley, SenLinYu, Andy Weir, Naomi Novik…and those are just the ones off the top of my head.

It also feels like it has become more mainstream – I see people talking about fic as seriously as they do traditionally published books, and while that is mainly Dramione (Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger for those of you who aren’t on that side of the internet), it’s getting broader. And given that I have gotten so much out of this genre of reading, I thought it was the right time to chime in.

My three areas that I bop around in are primarily Harry Potter, Bridgerton, and Once Upon a Time, believe it or not. In all cases, I enjoy the fanfic more than the source material – but I also love the comfort of familiar characters and tropes. It’s the best of both worlds for me, and I will even share some fics here if you are also curious about this space. In no particular order:

• The Debt of Time by ShayaLonnie (Harry Potter – Hermione/Sirius) – Archive of Our Own

• Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Falling in Love by isthisselfcare (Harry Potter – Draco/Hermione) – Archive of Our Own

• Measure of a Man by inadaze22 (Harry Potter – Draco/Hermione) – Archive of Our Own

• The Reluctant Damsel by Royal_Darjeeling (Bridgerton) – Archive of Our Own

• Only You by ktbeets and To Gravy with Love by Sevens11073003 (Bridgerton) – Archive of Our Own, Archive of Our Own

• Peace I Live with You by jncar (Once Upon a Time) – Archive of Our Own

• Love and Other Historical Accidents by PacificRimbaud (Harry Potter – Draco/Hermione)– Archive of Our Own

• long story short by itwasglorious (Bridgerton) – Archive of Our Own

• The Bodyguard by emmy_award (Harry Potter – Harry/Hermione) – Archive of Our Own

• And Now, Here’s Your Host by cereal (Once Upon a Time) – Archive of Our Own

• Fourteen Days by Alexandra_emerson (Harry Potter – Harry/Hermione) – Archive of Our Own

• The Journal by akorah (Harry Potter – Hermione/Theo) – Archive of Our Own

• Wait and Hope by mightbewriting (Harry Potter – Draco/Hermione) – Archive of Our Own

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by olivieblake (Harry Potter) – Archive of Our Own

• Innocent Monsters by itscometothis (Harry Potter – Draco/Hermione)– Archive of Our Own

• Tripping over the Blue Line by WelpThisisHappening (Once Upon a Time) – Archive of Our Own

• An October of Unconventional Courtships (Harry Potter – James/Lily) – Archive of Our Own

• romanticizing mister bridgerton by beautifultropicalfish (Bridgerton – Colin/Penelope) – Archive of Our Own

• New Wolves by Metamorphases (Bridgerton) – Archive of Our Own

• The Equation of Us series by aRegularJo (Bridgerton) – Archive of Our Own

Okay, that got way too long, but none of you should be surprised. Didn’t you just read that I consumed millions of words* of fanfic last year? You should be impressed with my restraint.

If you’d like to chat – or get more recs! – please let me know. Fanfic is one of my favorite things to talk about when there’s an audience; it’s up there with needlepoint and Formula 1. So please, give me an audience.

Happy weekend, and happy reading!

*According to the internet, the average book length for adult fiction is between 70,000 and 100,000 words.